Abstract

Leveraging Technology in Healthcare

Author(s): Harish C. Rijhwani

The advent of Covid-19 has brought Healthcare Information technology to the forefront. Organizations across the globe have been forced to look at different options to keep their revenues (especially outpatient) going. Telemedicine was conceptualized in 1920s, till few months ago it was considered as a target market for only rural areas. In many countries it was still in the nascent stage. The current world situation has forced organizations to consider telehealth/telemedicine very seriously. BCBS Massachusetts announced in April 2020 that it processed 250K telemedicine claims, overall a 3600% increase over Feb 2020 and 5100% increase over 2019. The growth seen is explosive, but to truly monitor a patient the vitals (viz, Sp02, BP, Sugar) are needed to be captured, hence we could also see a growth in home medical devices.